How to Teach Your Children to Be Responsible

You do not have to send your children to war for them to learn about responsibility.

Do you want your children to be more responsible? Responsible behavior does not happen naturally, it’s something that must be learned. It is very important that as parents we take our children to be responsible at a very early age. They need to have a healthy respect for other people’s feelings and a great sense of right and wrong.

Training your children to be responsible and self reliant is the best way to ensure they are successful in life. Children have to learn how they can positively contribute to society so that they will relate to other people in harmony. Being responsible and self reliant means teaching your children that there are consequences to their actions, whether good or bad.

You can teach your children responsibility from three different levels: social, family and individual. Here are a few responsible habits in which you can teach your children from a very early age.

Social responsibilities

• Ask your children to give their seat to those who are elderly or have a lot of packages when on a train or bus.
• Teach them to always throw their trash away when in public places and to never litter.  I even teach mine to clean up public places when they see a lot of trash.
• Teach them that it’s very anti-social to annoy other people on purpose. For example, when they are playing with their friends they are not to be overly loud to avoid annoying others in the area.
• Teach them the importance of never trespassing on other people’s property and to do as the signs say such as keep off the grass, no loitering, no pets allowed, and one student at a time.
• Teach them to always respect and take care of all public conveniences, even if they don’t want to. If they end up causing any damage, tax payers have to pay to fix it.
• Teach them to open doors when at doctor’s offices, restaurants, and so on for those who are handicapped or elderly.

Family responsibilities

• Give your children chores that are their responsibility, where the entire family will rely upon them to be done, such as taking out the trash, setting the dinner table, and doing the laundry.
• Teach your children to never take things that are not theirs without first asking for permission.
• Allow your children to learn from any mistakes. Allow them to feel the consequences of their actions. When they are having disagreements, encourage them to find a solution to their problem that doesn’t harm anyone else.
• Have them contribute in ways to make the family happy like making a dessert for everyone to enjoy, planning a fun day, doing the dishes, getting the house ready for guests and helping make meals.

Individual responsibilities

• Teach them to pick up after themselves. They should be keeping their rooms clean and reasonably organized. Show them how to return things when they are done with them.  Be sure that everything has a place so that when asked, your children can clean up on their own. After meals, have your children clean up their dishes by taking them to the sink and rinsing them.
• Support and help your children to always complete their homework in a timely fashion.
• Let your children pack their own lunches for school and have them do it the night before. Teach them to make healthy choices for snacks and how to make sandwiches.
• Teach your children how important it is to go bed on time every night and have them do so without complaining.
• Teach your children to be responsible for looking after their belongings such as toys and clothes. They should know not to leave their things lying around with the mindset that you’ll just buy them new things if their things get broken or lost. They also must learn how to ask other people to not damage any of their personal belongings.

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